Customer Reviews

Plantation: A Lowcountry Tale

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This was my first introduction to Dorothea Benton Frank, but it won't be the last book I purchase from her.

This is an endearing and charming tale about a family that is ultimately brought together through a very difficult time. Ms. Frank has the ability to weave humor, folklore, history, and just plan fun throughout the story. I truly found this book to be amazing!

One of my favorite authors is Pat Conroy. I have read all of his books. Ms. Frank seems to share his ability to tell a story and keep his/her audience totally engrossed and comitted to the read.

There are funny, sad, intelligent, nasty, good, sweet, innocent, and centered characters in this book. Ms. Frank has a marvelous ability to bring each character to life and to make the reader feel that this is either someone already known to them or someone you would love to know.

I can't say enough about the beautiful writing that is in this book. I actually cried and am not one to do that freely. So that surprised me a lot. It was worth it. A great author and a great read!

After returning to the Plantation, Ms Benton Frank really hits her stride with passion and knowledge of the ACE basin in the Gullah Low Country of South Carolina. By mixing life stories from all facets of this particular plantation, the reader is drawn into a comforting fold of Southern Life, making you one of the family. The book is so enjopyable, I felt as if I was a vouyeristic member of the family peeking in on all the secrets.

I read this book AM and PM, and was only dissapointed that it ended. Ms Benton Franks writing is evolving into a much crisper, more joined together style than Sullivan's Island, with a better grasp and flow of the wonderful story of rediscovery of ones true heritage and inner self.

I loved this book, please keep 'em comming!

Here is a book to hold to your heart, it is that good. And before I even get to the fun, lively and irresistible plot, let me just say that we know on page one that Miss Lavinia, our own Low Country Auntie Mame, has passed away. And yet at the end, when we have finished getting to know her and attend her death and funeral, I was crying like a baby. And I don't cry at books!!

The plot to this book is true to Dotty Frank's genre: displaced Low Country gal comes home, gets mesmerized, and slowly regains her roots. In this case, the woman is Caroline Wimbley Levine, married to a cold and smug psychiatrist, Richard, and living in equally cold luxury in New York with their beloved son Eric.

When Caroline hears from her brother Trip that their mother, Lavinia, is losing her marbles and must be put in assisted living, Caroline grabs Eric and goes home for what she thinks will be for a few days. And there she is caught up in the gullah magic; the Low Country mystique (in which I thoroughly believe, thanks to Dotty's wonderful books) and a chance to become, once again, the "real" Caroline.

This might be the best of the four books Dotty Frank has so-far written. I cannot praise it highly enough. Grab it and lose yourself in a truly wonderful read!

Great summer read, yanh!

If you are looking for a great summer beach book, try Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank. Even better than Sullivan's Island, it is such great fun reading this lowcountry tale. The family is dysfunctional enough to be Southern, eccentric enough to make you laugh out loud, and human enough to make you cry. The matriarch, Miss Lavinia, is a hoot! I was torn between cringing at her antics and yet wanting to be like her in my old age. The battles between Miss Lavinia's daughter, Mrs. Caroline Wimbley Levine, and her perpetually pregnant low-life sister-in-law rage on while the crown prince son drinks on amidst gambling, infidelity, and a cast of zany supporting characters. All of the ordinary story elements are here -wealth, marriages in crisis, parenting, the struggle to be independent balanced against the need to go home. However, Dorothea Benton Frank has made the characters come alive in such a delightful way that Thomas Wolfe is proved wrong - you can go home again! After weeks of searching for the perfect summer read, I finally found it! Any book with a chapter titled, "Miss Lavinia Would Like to Have a Word with You", just has to be read!

Caroline Wimbley could list a million reasons for untying herself from her flamboyant mother Lavinia's apron strings and escaping to New York City to marry herself off to the first unsuitable man who looked her way. She's hasn't felt close to Lavinia in eons--ever since Daddy died and Lavinia simply quit being a mother.

While the passing yawn of years has not played out as passionately as Caroline once hoped, she considers herself well married, happily self employed, and deliriously happy with her bright, but somewhat academically challenged young son.

Going home to the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation where she and her brother Tripp were raised did not occupy a high spot on Caroline's list of priorities. Fate rears her fickle head, cackles noisily, and sets her sights firmly on Caroline's life.

A rare phone call from her brother Tripp suggests the possibility that mother Lavinia has taken leave of her senses. Caroline rushes home "to see about mother."

From the moment Caroline sets foot on the grounds of the plantation,little appears to have changed. Everything is just as beautiful as she remembers. But Caroline soon realizes that surface appearances mean little. Unflattering family secrets lurk in every branch of the Wimbley family, and promise to wreck havoc in everyone's lives.

The only that the only thing that is for certain is that Lavinia, while as eccentric as ever, is perhaps the only member of the Wimbley crew who is in full control of her sanity.

Plantation is both bust-a-gut funny and chock full of low country wisdom. Ms. Frank's ability to entice her characters to get up and dance off the page makes this endearing novel more than just a story. It is a tribute to the south I grew up with, where what is said, what is done and what is felt seldom means the same thing. This tale is rich with southern familiarity, and our infamous tawdry secrets.

Frank's spellbinding ability to spin a yarn nudges the reader gently along as we each come remember the ties that bind us to family. Anyone who's ever both loved and hated a mother will leave this story yearning to feel safe in Momma's care just one more time.

Bravo, Dorothea Benton Frank. You done good, you did.

I was excited to find Plantation on the last day of my beach vacation and couldn't wait to get home to start reading it as I had thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Frank's debut novel - Sullivan's Island - and knew what to expect from this gifted storyteller. Plantation was another wonderful read, full of both endearing as well as dysfunctional characters who literally come to life on the page. I read a lot of novels and occasionally one touchs my soul; Plantation was such a book. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. Hopefully we can look forward to more books from this very accomplished author.

"You know those pivotal moments in your life that you don't see coming? The ones you wished arrived with a timer going off so you'd know this is it! Well, when the phone rang in February, you couldn't have convinced me that six months later, Mother would be in "the box" and I'd be wearing her pearls, twisting them around my finger exactly like she used to do." So begins "Plantation" the tale of Caroline Wimbley Levine and her flamboyant mother, Miss Lavinia, "the ACE basin version of Auntie Mame." Add to that a practicing psychiatrist husband with more bats in his belfry than the Sistine Chapel, an alcoholic, gambling brother with a perpetually pregnant white trash wife and three uncivilized kids, and you have a book you can't to put down. But Dottie Frank, best selling author of "Sullivan's Island," was not quite satisfied with her cast of characters. She created an intelligent, organized female plantation overseer who sees that the entire family doesn't jump headlong into the Edisto River. Not done yet, the author then puts life into a young dreadlocked Kama Sutra lover who makes Caroline "twitch in places she didn't even know were nerve endings." Caroline has been living in New York City for fifteen years when she is called home by her brother, Tripp, who fears that Miss Lavinia, the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation, has popped her cork. As the only daughter, it's high time, so says her brother, that Caroline gets herself on back home to see about the situation. (Situations are what the Wimbleys call family trouble.) Like any good daughter, Caroline flies south to tend to Mama and by doing so, once again becomes involved in the dysfunctional family antics that sent her dashing off to New York City in the first place. Plantation is delightful. As a former South Carolina Low Country woman myself, Dottie Frank's words were so beautifully painted on the page that I could almost feel the cool, dark waters of the Edisto River and smell the dirt that surrounds it. Southerners will love the richness with which Benton Frank writes of family secrets, tantalizing the reader to become as enmeshed in their "situation" as Caroline, Tripp, Millie and the ever zany Miss Lavinia. This bright new star on the literary horizon writes from the heart. You will put the book down for only one reason: to wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.

Caroline Wimbley Levine was reared in southern tradition, on a plantation that her family has owned for generations. Her brother Trip has strayed a bit but is still part of the "good ole boy" generation that sips their bourbon freely, and never speaks of financial matters or politics when the ladies are present. Miss Lavinia is the Lady of the manor and is about to leave things in the questionably competent hands of her children.

The author gives us characters that ooze with substance and strength. She is luminous in her presentation of family ties and the love between siblings that miles or years cannot erase. There are some amusing secrets to be uncovered as the author weaves a wonderful story of family loyalty and expectation.

I was pleased to find yet another wonderful adventure from the Southern Low Country. After Thoroughly enjoying SULLIVAN'S ISLAND I couldn't wait to pick up another book written by this author. I was not disappointed. I have placed Dorothea Benton Frank on my favorite authors list and so should you. 12/27/01

Caroline Wimbley Levine is a South Carolina native living in New York City, married to a Jewish psychiatrist, mother of a darling young boy, running a decorating business, and about to turn 40. Life has been pretty good to her. She thought.

When Caroline answers a call from her brother, Trip, saying their mother needs to be placed in assisted living, she makes a trip home to the Low Country of South Carolina to check things out. Her mother, Lavinia, a flamboyant but oh so well bred matron, seems like the same old Lavinia to her. The problem seems to be Trip's trashy wife, Frances Mae, pregnant again and longing to live at Tall Pines, Lavinia's ancestral home. Satisfied that Frances Mae's designs have been nipped in the bud and Lavinia is fine, Caroline heads back home to New York. It isn't long, however, before her marriage goes South and, at loose ends, she packs up her child and heads back to Tall Pines.

More than the story of Caroline "finding herself" and growing up at the age of 40, this is a witty, intelligent, sensitively written tale of home and family and relationships. No matter who you are or where you live, you are sure to see glimpses of yourself, your friends, and your family as we watch Caroline learn to date, discern the difference between love and sex, mend fences with her only sibling, and discover the woman beneath the facade of her mother. And don't we all have a relative somewhere who needs a good, swift kick kick in the pants?! It is a pleasure watching Caroline grow enough backbone to send ol' Frances Mae down the road to her comeuppance.

The novel enters its most poignant phase with Lavinia's diagnosis of melanoma. It is during Lavinia's illness that Caroline finally finds her mettle and comes into her own. It sure made me think about my own familial relationships and strengths and how I will handle these trials when they come. And they will. This book is a wonderful treasure trove of wisdom and lessons, and I am richer for having read it.

For every daughter who has lost her mother to a terminal illness, this is a MUST read. For every reader who revels in the upper-middle-class Southern life, this is a MUST read. For everyone who enjoys a novel with humor, distinctive local color, and amazing insights into self-discovery, this is a MUST read.

The story begins at the funeral of Miss Lavinia and her daughter Caroline takes us on a tour of pivotal moments that led to this day. The family relationships that bind us, the heritage we can run from but never escape, the unending parade of people who leave their prints on the canvas of our lives, are all examined with wit and passion. Dorothea Benton Frank is remarkable in the way she draws you into the story and makes you a part of life with Caroline. In New York or back at Tall Pines Plantation, I felt like Caroline's shadow, suffering every indignity with her, rejoicing in every happy event with her.

Caroline's journey of self-discovery leads her to some revealing truths about the nature of mother-daughter relationships, the misunderstandings that bruise hearts, the reunions that make us realize no matter how our lives differ from our mothers, we are forever and thankfully so our mother's daughter, her true and lasting spitting image.

So curl up with Caroline and her nearest and dearest: Trip, her hard-drinking brother and quintessential Southern good ole boy; her trashy sister-in-law Frances Mae; her surrogate mother and housekeeper Millie; her precocious son Eric; her repulsive husband Richard, and most of all Miss Lavinia, the larger-than-life mother Caroline must come to terms with before she can become the person she was destined to be.